A Minor Engagement and Other Stories

By Donald J. Young

THE REUNION (The New International Library, Inc.)
I have read your book, called THE REUNION with interest and excitement. I think of the originality of the whole conception and swift pace with which you carry it off. Mark Shorer, writer and critic.

THE LIONS SHARE (Avranches Press)
Thanks for the gift of THE LIONS SHARE, which Ive read practically in one sitting with considerable admiration. The book is wonderfully readable. Paul Fussell, author of the classical study of war, THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY.
Thanks for sending me your novel THE LIONS SHARE, which I have now read and enjoyed very much. You have a wonderful way with words and scenes. As Paul Fussel says, the book is wonderfully readable. Stephen E. Ambrose, author of CITIZEN SOLDIERS.
I liked your book (THE LIONS SHARE). It rings true. Only someone who was there could have written it. John Toland, author of BATTLE: THE STORY OF THE BULGE.

THE BATTLE FOR SNOW MOUNTAIN (Pocol Press)
Ive never read a more powerful anti-war novel than THE BATTLE FOR SNOW MOUONTAIN, not that its an anti-war novel in an ideological sense or a political novel. The reader shares the fact that no one knew what was going on, the blinding snowstorms working beautifully. There is the quixotic pair, idealistic and realistic, but again not as symbols, but as real people. John Dizikes, formerly Professor in the American Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz..

TOMS WAR (Avranches Press)
The poems (in TOMS WAR) have clarity, force, the feeling of a true and heartfelt report. Robert Pinsky, formerly Poet Laureate.

NEW VISTAS (Avranches Press)
Many thanks for sending me NEW VISTAS. Ive been reading the poems with great pleasure. Stephen Greenblatt, author of the highly acclaimed book on Shakespeare, WILL IN THE WORLD.
I thank you for the your wonderful poems in NEW VISTAS, so vivid and fresh. I read them slowly over several months and very much enjoyed them. Jay Parini, author of the excellent book, ROBERT FROST, THE LIFE.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483676647

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Donald J. Young.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2013913775

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4836-7663-0

                Softcover      978-1-4836-7662-3

                Ebook            978-1-4836-7664-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 08/01/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

126824

Contents

A Minor Engagement

The Final Decision

A Night in Monterey

The Hedge

The Blind Spot

The Typing Teacher

The End of a Friendship

About the Author

I want to thank Harry Card for his excellent suggestions on how to improve the text. I also wish to thank Cindy Gustafson for her help in preparing the book for publication. Jenny Petter was the consummate artist who designed the cover for the book.

For Viviane

For all her love and support

A Minor Engagement

1

The Captain didn’t know exactly where they were, except they were somewhere in Germany’s Snow Mountain. The GIs were aware of the anxiety in the officer’s face, which was powdered with talcum, his long blond hair sticking out of his helmet. He still had his gas mask and grenade pouch, which the others, except for Thomas, had tossed away as useless baggage. A walking ammo dump, a GI called the officer.

The Captain wouldn’t come up on line to enlighten them about their position. He was hiding like a mole in the network of ditches at the rear outpost, shaking at the slightest rustle of a branch in the woods.

Thomas had a time fitting his tall frame in the deep, soggy ditch he’d chosen for protection against any artillery rounds. His horn-rimmed glasses, pushed down by the heavy steel helmet, kept sliding down his nose. They’d also fogged up from the cold.

He was amazed they’d actually come to the front. He felt his company now had a chance for significant action.

Suddenly there was the scream of a shell passing over, like nothing he’d ever heard before, and he was crouched low in the ditch. He hadn’t heard the firing of an artillery gun, which would’ve explained the whirring of the mad bird over his head.

Another shell whizzed over him, and he froze; another followed, which exploded close to him, spraying snow on him like a storm—followed by a cry from a nearby field.

Another shell screamed over him, and he squirmed in his ditch and gritted his teeth, saying, No, no, not here.

Then the shelling stopped, and he got out of the ditch, feeling relieved, though he was sweating under his jacket, even in the bitter cold.

Several GIs came up out of their holes and stared at each other, brushing the dirty snow off their overcoats and checking their guns, wet with snow.

Thomas couldn’t believe what had happened. None of the shells had hit him, just stirring up the snow that fell on his jacket. The shells whizzing overhead were like something in a dream.

Better get used to it, Thomas, the Sergeant said, who’d just come by, refaced from the bitter cold, his body seemingly blown up by his thick, woolen coat, coming from the snow-filled trees like a fugitive from a storm. He appeared ragged, his ODs rumpled like an induction uniform. His face had a new, wasted pallor, like the look of an athlete who’d reduced too fast.

Because he was unharmed, Thomas didn’t think of his first shelling as something frightening. It was more like an amazing event in his life.

The next day he wrote a letter home:

Dear family:

Yesterday I came under fire for the first time. I couldn’t believe it was happening. The shells were flying overhead, like something out of a movie. But I’m okay. You don’t have to worry.

Love,

Thomas

2

A week after they’d moved into the Snow Mountains, Thomas was eating the evening meal of roast beef, potatoes, and a salad, when he was surprised by a brilliant white flare that shot up like a Fourth of July rocket, turning the fading light of the day into a bright noon.

Don’t budge, the Sergeant cautioned the men.

Another flare lit up the sky, putting them in the limelight, and a shell came whistling over their heads. Someone was crying for a medic, and the Sergeant and Thomas followed the cry until they came to three men, kneeling forward in the snow as if waiting for a breathing space in the firing in order to edge ahead. But they were frozen in a tableau of readiness, like a training photo showing how to creep and crawl. Thomas checked the nearest who was doubled up on his side as if from a stomachache. Turning him slightly, he found a jagged shell hole in his coat. He could find no pulse. The second GI, his helmet beside him, was sunk deep in the snow, his hair a clotted dark red mass. His blood had drawn wiggly lines on the sheet of snow. The last man in the patrol had been struck in the head.

One shell must’ve done it for all three, the Sergeant said. We can’t do anything for them."

Who are they? Thomas asked.

I think I recognize the first guy—Martin from K Company, the Sergeant said.

We can’t just sit here and let them have target practice on us., Thomas said.

The blood on the snow was fresh. These guys, Thomas thought, had been walking through the woods like himself seconds before. Now they were non-persons, their blood spilled out in ugly streaks. The whirlwind of the blow had made the last one in the tableau a grotesque model of a man. Had they accomplished anything before the sky fell on them? Did they ever think they might go so quickly to that other side of night—as one of the poets called death.

Now for the first time, he felt a touch of real fear. How, he wondered, did he get himself into such a predicament? Though veterans said that in a war one would be subjected to something terrifying, war for him always had a touch of romance, with a chance for heroic action. But now he thought there was nothing heroic about the sight of the dead Martin, and the unknown corpses beside him.

3

One morning, a few weeks after they’d taken their positions, the Captain, Thomas and three privates were on a patrol, walking into what Thomas thought was an unreal landscape of pine trees weighed down by snow. Warned by the Captain of the possibility of mines, Thomas was worried that a hand might reach out of the snow and tear him apart.

Later, they came to what turned out to be an enemy outpost, and Thomas, looking over a hedgerow, saw a German soldier resting on the grass, eating a sandwich, his gun lying by his side. Quietly, Thomas asked the Captain what they should do, and the officer said he would toss a grenade over the hedge, and Thomas should do the same.

They did so, and each grenade exploded. And, hearing no sound, they went cautiously to the other side of the hedge. There, they found the body of a tall soldier, his face puffed out like a balloon, with a red hole beneath his belt, spouting a pool of blood.

Returning to the company’s base camp, the Captain gathered the members of I Company and moved them out, to join with K Company in their planned attack on the town of Stein.

To avoid mines, they marched in single file, the first GI taking the risk for the rest. Thomas breathed in the cold clear air. The crisp, marble-like snow crackled under his boots.

The line of marchers extended across a long field, as straight as men afraid of a mine could make it. Each man hit the hole full of wet snow deepened by the man in front of him.

The thought of a mine made the men quiet, awed by the long path they were making in the snow, like a line on a white pad. When they got to the center of the field the snow let up, and Thomas saw an open patch of blue sky. Suddenly, a plane came out of that hole of blue at high speed, with another right behind it. The first plane, a Messerschmitt, banked, then came over again. The second, an American P-47, followed and with a burst hit the enemy plane, which caught fire and spun down toward the firs, exploding with orange balls shooting off in a spray. A shout went up from the men, but the Captain waved his hands frantically to silence them.

Thomas felt cheered up. If the sky stayed clear, they would get more planes to soften the enemy. So far, they could tear